Standing just a few feet from the American soldiers who were training him in ground-assault techniques on Thursday, Iraqi Pvt. Ali Saleh let loose with a confession: During his leave from Iraq’s U.S.-trained military, Pvt. Saleh fights the militants of Islamic State as part of the Hezbullah Brigades—an Iranian-backed Shiite militia group that only a few years ago was attacking U.S. soldiers.
Several other Iraqi soldiers under training said they actively served on their days off with Shiite militia—some of them, like the Hezbullah Brigades, still listed by the U.S. as terrorist groups.
“The militias are much better than the regular Iraqi army,” said Pvt. Saleh. “They have more support and more weapons.”
In Washington, a U.S. military official said he had seen no reports that suggested any significant number of Iraqi soldiers were moonlighting with militias. But officials there say they don’t discount that the sympathies of many Shiites in Iraq—including members of the Iraqi security forces—lie with various militia units.
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